Molecular Poetics on Sized Xuan Paper: Liau Chun-Yi’s Microscopic Gaze and the Flux of Life

The 24th NAU 21st Century Art Exhibition in Japan: A Complete Record and In-Depth Art Critique of Taiwanese Artist Liau Chun-Yi’s Participation

Curated and Written by Wang Muti

A Quiet Laboratory in Roppongi — When a Scientist Picks Up the Brush

Early spring, 2026. Roppongi, Tokyo.
The National Art Center, Tokyo (NACT), designed by Metabolist master architect Kisho Kurokawa, captures the movement of urban light and shadow in its iconic undulating glass curtain wall. Within the vast exhibition hall of The 24th NAU 21st Century Art Exhibition in Japan, the space is saturated with various avant-garde, restless, and even disruptive languages of contemporary art.

Yet in one corner of the venue, Taiwanese artist Liau Chun-Yi’s monumental diptych, Becoming, stood like a**“quiet laboratory.”**

She is not an ordinary painter, but a researcher holding a Ph.D. from the Institute of Medicine at Chung Shan Medical University. The brush in her hand resembles a pipette in a laboratory; the sized xuan paper she chooses functions like a glass slide under a microscope.

Unlike the free-flowing abandon associated with raw xuan paper, Liau makes use of the non-absorbent properties of sized xuan paper to conduct a precise experiment in**“layering”** and**“materiality.”** She transforms biology’s microscopic understanding of life into a macroscopic philosophy of color and ink, presenting in Tokyo’s temple of art a form of**“rational lyricism.”**

The Phenomenology of the Site

Constructing a “Microcosm” Inside Kisho Kurokawa’s Glass Tower

The National Art Center, Tokyo is a vast container that emphasizes symbiosis. For Liau Chun-Yi, the challenge was this: How can one reveal the depth of the microscopic world within such an immense physical space?

1. Resisting the “Flatness” of the White Cube with Thickness

NACT’s soaring white walls can easily make two-dimensional works appear visually thin. Liau therefore chose sized xuan paper combined with mineral pigments.

• Because sized xuan paper has been treated with alum and glue, it is firmer and does not readily absorb water. As a result, pigment does not seep deeply into the paper but instead accumulates on the surface in layers.
• This layering creates a physical sense of thickness and bas-relief-like dimensionality. Under the museum’s spotlights, the crystals in the mineral pigments refract light, lending the surface a gem-like material presence that is capable of holding its own within a monumental exhibition space.

2. A Visual Field of Gravity

Liau’s work creates a field that draws the gaze inward. Its profound blue textures—like the deep sea or the gravitational darkness of a black hole—compel viewers to step closer and scrutinize details that resemble cell division. She counters the vast with the minute, creating amid the clamor of Roppongi a point of spiritual contemplation.

The Duality of Identity

A Medical Ph.D.’s Research Perspective: From Petri Dish to Xuan Paper

To interpret Becoming, one must first understand the eye of its maker. Liau Chun-Yi’s eye has been shaped by rigorous scientific training.

1. Not Clinical, but Research-Oriented

She is not a physician diagnosing at the bedside, but a doctoral researcher investigating mechanisms in the laboratory. This means that what concerns her is not**“cure,”** but**“principle.”**

• In her paintings, the peony is not a traditional literati symbol of wealth and splendor, but rather an aggregate of biological energy.
• The background textures are not expressive clouds or mists, but simulations of molecular structures or organic tissues.

2. The Transference of an Experimental Spirit

As a member of the Biochemical Society of Taiwan / Taiwan Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, she is accustomed to controlling variables. In her artistic practice, she brings this same spirit into material experimentation. The glue-and-alum concentration of the sized xuan paper, the particle size of the mineral pigments, and the speed of water evaporation all become parameters under her control. She works as though conducting a chemical experiment, seeking the perfect balance between control and chance.

A Deep Deconstruction of the Work

The Material Dialectics and Visual Rhetoric of Becoming

Work:Becoming
Dimensions: 138 × 138 cm (Diptych / two full 4-foot sheets)
Medium: Sized Xuan Paper, Ink, Mineral Pigments

This is a technical masterpiece founded upon the very properties of sized xuan paper.

I. The Chemistry of Sized Xuan

An Aesthetic of Control Through Non-Absorbency

Unlike raw xuan paper, where “one stroke determines everything,” sized xuan permits repeated washes, renderings, and corrections. Liau fully exploits this characteristic.

• Layered staining (layering): The painting’s deep blue background was not created in a single application, but built up through dozens of superimposed washes of diluted ink and blue pigment. Because the paper does not absorb water readily, each dried layer forms a thin film. Light penetrates these films and returns through them, producing a profound sense of transparency.

II. The Primordial Broth of Blue

A Metaphor of Cells and Void

The white, flocculent, circular textures in the background are among the most captivating aspects of the entire painting.

• Technical speculation: These effects were most likely created using methods such as water collision or salt-sprinkling, techniques made possible by the properties of sized xuan paper. Droplets of clean water or a chemical solvent are introduced before the pigment has dried, and surface tension pushes the pigment outward.
• Scientific metaphor: Through the eyes of a medical Ph.D., this resembles a cell culture medium, or the primordial soup of life itself—a chaotic precondition of life, filled with possibility.

III. The Stratification of Mineral Matter

The Yellow Peony as an Entity of Energy

The peony in the foreground is rendered with yellow-toned mineral pigments. The foundation of Liau’s work lies in outline drawing. This technique inherits the spirit of Song-dynasty gongbi painting, emphasizing the resilience, modulation, and turning of line.

• The thickness of line: Her outlining is not rigid contouring, but a variation on the calligraphically inflected modes of**“iron-wire line”** or**“orchid-leaf line.”** Such lines endow the depicted forms with a physical sense of weight and stability, creating a kind of structural realism in visual terms.
• Rational delineation: Through precise outlining, Liau defines the boundaries between void and substance, inside and outside. This sense of boundary responds to the overabundance of blurred imagery in contemporary visual culture, demonstrating her respect for the essential structure of things.

IV. The Breath-Regulation of Minor Freehand Expression

The Spirituality of Flow

Upon the strict foundation of meticulous outlining, Liau introduces the atmosphere and spontaneity of small-scale freehand expression (xiaoxieyi).

• The breathing of brush and ink: Unlike the expansiveness of bold freehand ink painting, her xiaoxieyi manifests as subtle control over moisture and layered tonal buildup within predetermined contours. This allows the otherwise firm linear framework to become filled with a sense of moving air and living vitality.
• Controlled contingency: In the diffusion of color, she permits ink and pigment to drift and collide locally within the boundaries established by the outlines. This controlled contingency allows her work to retain a literati elegance and composure within refinement.

The Alchemy of Technique

An Experiment in “Water Collision, Powder Collision,” and “Crystal Sedimentation”

Liau Chun-Yi’s creative process is a performance of physics and chemistry.

1. The Dynamics of Liquid Tension

When painting on sized xuan paper, water remains on the surface for a long time. Liau uses this window of time to allow pigments of different specific gravities—such as heavy mineral colors and lighter plant-based pigments—to separate and settle naturally in water. This kind of sedimentary texture is impossible with raw xuan paper. It imitates the processes of geological deposition or the formation of biological tissues, giving the surface an authentic sense of natural evolution.

2. The Invisible Support of Calligraphic Line

Liau’s artistic achievement lies in her courageous return to the most essential—and most difficult—territory of ink painting: line.

She rejects the soft weakness that can easily arise in the boneless method, choosing instead to build upon gongbi outlining as her foundation, supplemented by the spiritual orientation of small freehand expression. This strategy of combining strength and suppleness not only preserves the essence of traditional painting, but also grants ink art a lucid, structural force within the visual environment of the contemporary world.

A Philosophical Gaze

“Becoming” as a Biological State of Emergence

The title Becoming poses a dual proposition—both philosophical and scientific.

1. Biological Dynamic Equilibrium

In biology, life is always in a state of metabolism. Cells continuously undergo death and regeneration; at no moment do they exist in a static state of completion. What Liau depicts is precisely this condition. The hazy halo in the upper right of the painting and the more concrete flower in the lower left suggest the aggregation and dispersal of energy. Life emerges from the blue void, briefly blossoms, and then returns once more to emptiness.

2. Deleuzian Becoming

This resonates strikingly with philosopher Gilles Deleuze’s concept of becoming. The painting is not a representation of a peony; rather, it captures the process by which the peony is becoming peony.

A Dialogue of Genealogies

The Delicacy of Nihonga and the Resonance of Contemporary Ink

Liau Chun-Yi’s work stands at the intersection of multiple artistic traditions.

1. A Dialogue with Nihonga

Through her use of sized xuan paper and mineral pigments, her work possesses the delicate materiality and decorative refinement of Nihonga. This enabled her work to quickly generate cultural resonance among local audiences in Japan’s NAU exhibition.

2. A Dialogue with Song Academy Painting

Sized xuan paper was a principal support for Song-dynasty gongbi painting. Liau inherits the Song spirit of investigating things to extend knowledge, yet she boldly innovates in formal terms, abandoning traditional realism in favor of a semi-abstract inner landscape.

“Rational Lyricism” in the NAU Exhibition Space

Within The 24th NAU 21st Century Art Exhibition, Liau Chun-Yi occupied a highly distinctive position.

1. Intellectual Density

Compared to many artists who work primarily from intuition, Liau’s paintings are supported by a powerful system of knowledge. Her background as a medical Ph.D. provides the work with a scientific narrative, which is both rare and highly persuasive within the contemporary art world.

2. A Cross-Cultural Visual Language

She avoids overly obscure Eastern allusions and instead employs universal visual symbols such as cells, the cosmos, and energy. This allows her work to cross linguistic boundaries and be understood by international audiences.

The Symbiosis of Reason and Sensibility — A New Paradigm of the Taiwanese Scholar-Artist

Text by Wang Muti

Liau Chun-Yi’s exhibition at the National Art Center, Tokyo, demonstrates the immense power of the interdisciplinary.

She proves that science and art are not opposites.

• Sized xuan paper is her Petri dish.
• Pigment is her reagent.
• Becoming is her research report.

This doctoral researcher in medicine uses a rational mind to control a complex technique of layered accumulation, while investing the image with profound poetic depth through a sensitive soul. In the light and shadow of the National Art Center, Tokyo, Liau Chun-Yi reveals to us that the mysteries of life exist not only beneath the microscope, but also between those layered strata of mineral matter and ink.

Artist Data File

• Artist: Liau Chun-Yi
• Identity:
  • Ph.D., Institute of Medicine, Chung Shan Medical University
  • Artist / Calligrapher / Researcher
• Selected Exhibition: The 24th NAU 21st Century Art Exhibition in Japan
• Exhibition Venue: The National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan
• Exhibited Work:
  • Title:Becoming
  • Dimensions: 138 × 138 cm (Diptych)
  • Medium: Sized Xuan Paper, Ink, Mineral Pigments
• Style Keywords: Microscopic Aesthetics, Biological Perspective, Layered Staining on Sized Xuan, Gongbi Outlining with Minor Freehand Expression, Scholar-Artist Practice